This is a service announcement for those despairing for the lack of proper skiing conditions now that the winter holidays are upon us: there are still ample amounts of snow on parking lot P6 at the airport!

According to the ancient Mayan calendar, January 21st, 2019, is the day that a reasonably young man in Bergen, Norway, were to goof around in his garden with a cup of coffee, a really long lens and a thermal skirt borrowed from his girlfriend. The Mayans sure hit pretty close with that prophecy!

(Photo from my backyard, 6:40 this morning. I had this sneaking feeling that I hadn’t posted anything to this blog for a few months, and just realized «a few months» actually meant 16 months…)

On a late Saturday evening this July, I boarded the sleeper train from Istanbul to Sophia. From there on, I travelled through Bulgaria and Romania, to Hungary, Ukraine and Poland.

Through thousands of kilometres on rail and road I followed the passing landscapes of Eastern Europe and recorded some moments, some views: Each a glimpse and gone forever, to quote the closing line in Robert Louis Stevenson’s railway poem.

Since acquiring its very first marble sculpture 500 years ago, the Vatican museums have grown to become one of the largest museums in the world with over 70,000 works attracting some 28 billion visitors a year.*

The Great Wait #2

Behold the Laocöon sculpture, the Raphael rooms, the Transfiguration, St. Jerome in Wilderness and the ticket line longer than the 3.2 kilometre Vatican state perimeter!

The Great Wait #3

See the Sistine Chapel with its ceiling and Last Supper by Michelangelo and its silence continuously broken by guards shouting Silenzio!

See the crowds, see the back of the person in front of you, get a contraband selfie stick poked in your ear.

The Great Wait #4

So I recently visited the Vatican Museums for the first time in ten years. Not much have changed since my last time. I still love the place. I still tried to beat the crowds. I still failed spectacularly.